More training needed on safety around tracks

Union Pacific Railroad invited media types to ride in a train's locomotive Tuesday and learn about the unsafe or downright crazy things people do around trains.

Michael Fitzgerald

Union Pacific Railroad invited media types to ride in a train's locomotive Tuesday and learn about the unsafe or downright crazy things people do around trains.

A four-car passenger train eased out of the 8th Street yard around 8:45 a.m. It trundled north. At almost the first crossing, a cop could be seen writing some driver a ticket.

"I hit a vehicle when I was a student engineer," said engineer Steve Hilding. He sat at a console in the locomotive's cab. "A Monte Carlo," he went on. "It was daddy's car."

The vehicle's two young female occupants, who'd been drinking, got stuck on the tracks outside Selma. It was night. The Monte Carlo was black. The three-man engine crew at first could not make out what they were bearing down on.

"We're all looking out, and sure we see something, and we can't identify what it is yet. And about the same time, we all say 'Oh, (bleep)!' "

The engineer hit the brakes. Problem: a 1.5-mile train hurtling forward at 55 mph takes a mile or more to stop.

The other problem - the vehicle occupants' problem, a big problem - was described by UP police Officer Patrick McGrath, who also was aboard the train Tuesday.

Of a vehicle-vs.-train accident, McGrath said, "It's like you stepped on a soda can. Because the weight ratio is exactly like that. You're not going to win."

As the train slammed into the Monte Carlo, Hilding didn't even know if the car was occupied.

"We didn't quite T-bone it," he said.

The locomotive crunched into the car's front passenger side. The car spun wildly, smashing against the side of the locomotive, falling away as the train skidded past.

So much for daddy's car.

"I'm sure the car was totaled," Hilding said. Only after he came to a stop, far down the tracks, did he learn the two women managed to get clear in time.

Drivers blow through crossings all the time. Of 111 crossing collisions in California in 2009, 30 people died and 30 suffered injuries.

No sooner had Hilding finished this story than out the window we saw a man walking around the lowered, blinking, ringing crossing gates to cross the tracks.

Said conductor Tim Grover, "It's amazing how otherwise intelligent people can be so careless with their safety around tracks."

Pedestrians seem to be everywhere around tracks, crossing illegally, strolling, playing chicken, throwing rocks at the train.

"From here to that rail crossing," Grover said, indicating a crossing 150 feet ahead, "you see kids down there putting cinder blocks on the tracks. Or putting coins on the tracks. It doesn't take anything to slip and fall, and then you're dealing with fatalities."

Hilding worries about folks wearing headsets.

"Trains can sneak up on you," he cautioned. "When they're just cruising along, not accelerating, they're surprisingly quiet."

A 15-year-old Pinole boy died that way in July. Last year saw 21 pedestrian fatalities and 21 injuries in California.

To the train crew, safety means concern for others. Also self-preservation.

"I'd feel horrible if I ran into a busload of kids," Hilding said. "But then, by that same line of thinking, I don't want to run into a cement truck or fuel truck and get killed."

Locomotives are dreadnought steel and iron from the chassis down. But they are merely a crash bar and sheet steel above.

"If the train derails, somebody gets hurt," Hilding said.

"Look around," Grover added. "There's no seat belts in there. If this thing goes sideways, we go with it."

Stockton police posted motorcycle cops at crossings Tuesday morning. In little more than an hour, they issued eight traffic citations and four trespasser tickets.

"Anybody who gets hit by a train, you have to be trespassing on our property," McGrath said.

Citations run $150 to $350.

Grover had advice on how to keep safe around trains.

"Stay away," he said.

On Friday, I did a cameo in the play "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" at Stockton Civic Theatre. Onstage, an actor playing a spelling bee monitor asked me if I needed a definition for the word "Mexican."

Instead of saying what I meant - something like, "No thank you. Mexicans are a large part of this city's population, so I'm familiar with the word" - I blurted out, "Not necessary. The town's full of them."

It was hardly the best way to express the thought.

I intended no offense. But I should have chosen my words more carefully. I apologize to anyone I offended.